Cellebrite Mobile Synchronization

History

2021

Blocking access to its products in Russia

On September 7, 2021, it became known that Cellebrite blocked customers (among them, mainly employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and special services) in Russia from accessing their products, despite the fact that the licenses did not expire.

About this writes D-Russia with reference to "a reliable source who wished to remain unnamed." It is reported that users of Cellebrite solutions in the Russian Federation did not receive official warnings about the termination of licenses. According to the publication, the cost of licenses for Cellebrite software exceeds 1 million rubles, but this information is not publicly available.

Cellebrite smartphone hacking software developer blocks access to its products in Russia

In March 2021, when Cellebrite announced the cessation of supplies of products to Russia and Belarus, there was no talk of revoking already paid licenses. Domestic resellers warned customers to operate Cellebrite hardware and software without updates and no Internet connection at all, but many, if not all criminologists, neglected this recommendation, as a result of which their hardware keys to access the software do not work.

According to D-Russia, Russian analogues of Cellebrite products exist and are not inferior in functionality to Israeli products. The advantage of Cellebrite is the large number of models and types of mobile devices available for taking data, including old button phones. The difficulty, however, is that domestic forensic scientists are accustomed to Cellebrite products, its import substitution for them is a non-trivial task.

Earlier in 2021 the head of the Signal company (Open Whisper Systems) developing of the same name protected messenger Moxie Marlinspike said that tools for extraction of data of the Cellebrite company are full of the vulnerabilities allowing including start of any code. According to him, Cellebrite developments carry out targeted parsing (analysis) of data from unverified sources. If the input data is incorrectly formatted, this can cause the memory integrity to be destroyed and the arbitrary code to run.^[1]

Refusal to sell products in the Russian Federation and Belarus

On March 18, 2021, Cellebrite officially announced the cessation of sales of its services and software solutions in Russia and Belarus. Explaining the reasons of such decision, the CEO of the company of Yossi Carmel (Yossi Carmil) said the following (his words are cited by the press service of Cellebrite):

Cellebrite helps law enforcement agencies and the company make our lives safer by providing solutions to legally obtain digital evidence in criminal investigations and civil trials. As part of our standard activities, we regularly review and update our regulatory compliance policy to ensure that we operate in accordance with generally accepted international rules and regulations.

Cellebrite Mobile Synchronization refused to sell products in the Russian Federation

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Cellebrite's refusal to supply hacking to law enforcement agencies in Russia and Belarus is due to the fact that Israeli lawyer and human rights activist Eitay Mack was able to prove to the company that its technologies are partially used in these countries illegally, for example, to hack and copy data from smartphones of oppositionists, LGBT minorities and activists.

The lawyer calls complexes for phone hacking dual-use technologies, therefore, requires supervision by the Ministry of Defense and the military export control agency.

Eitai Mack previously stated that in the Russian Federation Cellebrite developments are used to prosecute oppositionists. So, according to Mac, the Federal Security Service tried to hack into the smartphone of associate Alexei Navalny Lyubov Sobol using this software. However, it was not possible to get data from the iPhone and Xiaomi phones seized from her from the security forces.

Cellebrite denied selling technology to Belarus, but the investigating authorities found that the administration of President Alexander Lukashenko has been actively using Cellebrite hacker technologies since 2016, Haaretz writes.^[2]

2020: Signal messenger hack

2016: Delivery of more than 30,000 UFED complexes in 100 countries

According to Cellebrite for October 2016, the company delivered more than 30 thousand UFED complexes for law enforcement agencies, police and security services in 100 countries^[3].

At the same time, devices from an Israeli company can be used not only by investigators for operational-search measures, but also by ordinary citizens.

The general public heard about Cellebrite as part of the conflict between the FBI and Apple, when the Apple Corporation refused to provide the department with access to information on the shooter's smartphone from San Bernardino. After unsuccessful attempts to break the Internet company, even through the court, the US authorities resorted to the help of third parties.

The company is a subsidiary of the Japanese Sun Corporation, and representative offices are open, in addition to Israel, in the USA, Brazil, Singapore, Great Britain and Germany.

2013: Contract with the FBI

The Israeli company Cellebrite is considered one of the world's leading in the field of digital forensics and has been working with intelligence, defense agencies and law enforcement agencies of different countries for many years. In 2013, the company signed a contract with the FBI, on the basis of which it could assist bureau employees in working on the shooter's case. In the spring, it was reported that Cellebrite agreed to hack iPhone 6 for the Italian Leonardo Fabbretti, who asked Apple to provide access to his deceased son's smartphone. But the company could not solve the problem, since there were no backups of the smartphone.

Notes